Yep, conspiracy theorizing is sort of like nicotine to an addiction to harder things that become perniciously asocial like, “The most unbalanced members of a society, when exposed to these ideas, can be driven to commit terrible acts, including assault and mass murder”. Conspiracy theorizing should be moderated by everyone for everyone's protection. A strong protection against conspiracy theorists is in a vital and strong free public education for all citizens, at the least, that starts early and is sustained in to adulthood providing the critical skill-sets to have a more widely informed citizenry. -JaiGuruYou!
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <turquoiseb@...> wrote : Re: Conspiracy theories as addiction, here's an article on the very subject. Interestingly enough, the article -- sane and surprisingly sanely written until you get to the last section -- appears on a class-A conspiracy site. Go figure. That said, doesn't this quote sound familiar? How many times have we heard the word "sheeple" used by conspiracy theory addicts here on FFL? The obsession with conspiracy theories has been compared to an addiction. Once one has delved deeply into this mindset, recovery—a return to balanced, sound thinking—is rare. What motivates a person to immerse himself in them in the first place? Conspiracy theories are a powerful source of pride and a wellspring of intellectual vanity. The theorist comes to see himself as thinking on a higher plane than the ignorant masses around him. He walks the fringes of society, watching his surroundings with suspicion. No one realizes what’s going on, he thinks. If speaking his mind on conspiracies causes others to recoil, he simply dismisses them as “dumb sheep” who cannot see what he sees. Every episode like this further reaffirms how special this inside information makes him. Why Conspiracy Theories? http://realtruth.org/articles/110203-001-society.html http://realtruth.org/articles/110203-001-society.html Why Conspiracy Theories? http://realtruth.org/articles/110203-001-society.html A Magazine Restoring Plain Understanding View on realtruth.org http://realtruth.org/articles/110203-001-society.html Preview by Yahoo From: "TurquoiseBee turquoiseb@... [FairfieldLife]" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> To: "FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> Sent: Thursday, May 21, 2015 9:48 AM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: For those who don't believe in conspiracies From: salyavin808 <no_re...@yahoogroups.com> ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <noozguru@...> wrote : One big one announced today. You and I do this we go to jail. The banksters get a light fine. Their CEOs should be in prison and banks broken up. There isn't anyone who doesn't believe there are conspiracies. If you were to tell me this was a plot by a secret shadow government to help their reptilian overlords gain more power in the world then I would say you were speculating beyond what is required for a satisfactory explanation. That would be a conspiracy theory. Though not a very good one as it involves things we don't know anything about and have no knowledge of, like reptilian aliens and a government competent enough to pull off complex projects. Exactly. Conspiracies that stand the test of Occam's Razor have a chance of having happened, because one does not have to invent irrational and unprovable things to believe in them. Conspiracy theories require the person who believes in them to invest in things that cannot meet the Occam's Razor test (because there are simpler and more likely explanations) and require the believer to invest in the existence of complex "add-ons" to reality that cannot be proven to exist. The worst part about conspiracy theories IMO is that they are addictive. There have been many studies showing that the moment someone suspends belief in the rational and invests in one conspiracy theories, they are much more likely to believe the next conspiracy theory presented to them. Preferring irrational beliefs that cannot pass the Occam's Razor test becomes a habit, so what you wind up with is the people who flock to radio and TV shows that basically present nothing *but* conspiracy theories. And the audiences, having now put on the mindset of "believing the unbelievable" and "turning off their discrimination," tune in every day to find out the next unlikely thing they're supposed to feel all "elite" and "special" for "knowing." In other words, conspiracy theories are a drug, those who believe in them are junkies, and those who promote them are pushers.
